Editor’s note: Football is America’s sport. Puerto Rico is an American territory. CNN explores the obsession with Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl performance in a new CNN FlashDoc “Bad Bunny and the Halftime Show: Rhythms of Resistance.” Stream the special now on the CNN app. The hour will premiere Saturday, February 7 at 10pm ET on CNN.
History tells us that those who take the biggest stage in US sports have not shied away from using it as an opportunity to make a statement.
In some ways, Bad Bunny, this year’s Super Bowl halftime show performer, has already made his, taking the Grammys stage last Sunday and echoing a rallying cry heard at anti-ICE protests across the nation. The question now: What else will Bad Bunny have to say and will he say it during the halftime show?
“I think that regardless of what he does or doesn’t do, his presence there is deeply political,” Puerto Rico historian Jorell Meléndez-Badillo told CNN, noting that Bad Bunny’s show will undoubtedly put the “complex and uncomfortable realities of United States history” in relation to his homeland of Puerto Rico before a huge audience.
Throughout history, artists appearing on the Super Bowl stage – whether that be to sing the National Anthem or headline the Halftime Show – have time and again used their platform to make a statement about what’s going on off the field.
Here are a few examples:
